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Two 15-year-old girls shot to death at Arizona high school

Posted at 11:20 AM, Feb 12, 2016
and last updated 2016-02-12 14:53:19-05

Two 15-year-old girls were found shot dead Friday morning outside an Arizona high school, police said, with a police spokeswoman all but saying investigators believe at least one of the teens may have fired the fatal shots.

Investigators aren’t looking for a shooter and have no one in custody after the shooting just outside Independence High School in Glendale, police Officer Tracey Breeden said.

A shooting was reported just before 8 a.m., when the first classes were scheduled to start, Breeden said. Officers found the girls — both 10th-graders — under a covered patio area with one gunshot wound each and a weapon nearby, she said.

The girls, whose names weren’t immediately released, were pronounced dead at the scene.

Asked if this was a homicide-suicide or a double suicide, Breeden said she “can’t confirm anything at this time.”

“We don’t believe that there’s any suspects that are out there … that we’re searching for,” she said.

Breeden said she didn’t know what led to the shooting or how well, if at all, the girls knew each other.

Worried parents gather

As far as investigators know, no other students were around when the shooting happened, Breeden said. She said she didn’t know how the shooting was discovered.

Police locked down the school for hours, with students waiting in classrooms with teachers.

Police asked students’ parents to gather at a nearby Walmart to await further information. Video from CNN affiliate KNXV-TV showed scores of people gathered in the store’s parking lot and more standing across the street.

The school district said it would bus parents to the school, where they would reunite with their children.

“Our prayers are with the students, educators & families at Independence High School & all the first responders on the scene,” read a post on Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey’s Twitter account.

Independence High School opened in 1977 and is part of the Glendale Union High School District. More than 2,000 students are enrolled.

Glendale is a city of about 230,000 just northwest of Phoenix.